Evenley Wood Garden, June 2017

Evenley wood garden hosted the annual Lily and Rose festival, and for the second year running, Laid in Lavender took part. The venue is a beautiful, 60-acre woodland garden, full of lilies and other flowers, unusual and vast trees, also hiding a confusion [group] of guinea fowl!

The lily and Rose Festival is an event to really show off the tremendous grounds, when the lilies are at their best. There were a small range of artisans and traders, a treasure hunt for the children, plus talks and show rounds for the adults. This year the marquee had two other artists selling prints, which gave the space more of an art festival feel, an aspect I really liked.

Himalayan Lily

I got to explore the woodland space this year. Whilst getting a little lost, I discovered a whole array of beautiful scenes and exotic flowers, like the Himalayan Lily, a ten-foot-tall spectacular thing. With camera armed at the ready, I took some nice inspiring images that left me drooling to paint!

My stall was rather quiet this year. This was rather a shame because I thought my stand had improved from my last time here, what was my first trade show, not only at Evenley, but altogether. With reflection, I can see a couple of areas that may have been the cause for the quietness: the marquee wasn’t quite so easy to get into as last year (due to rain expected), secondly and most importantly, perhaps my layout and approach wasn’t so welcoming as it has been previously. The prints for sale for example, were on the shelves, rather than the table. So, people were drawn away from where I was sat. However, what with the previous exhibition a fortnight ago being part of an established show, a 1000+ through the door was always going to make the following show seem more reserved.

Despite the lack of human contact, I really enjoyed the day. It’s really a beautiful place to be, and I will be visiting again. In fact, there is rumour I may have a stall at their Halloween event…